Their Solution Falls Short

When it comes to standalone XR headsets, shedding weight while boosting performance is crucial. Meta has given us a glimpse of their Orion AR glasses that run with a nifty wireless computing unit, but don’t be too quick to think this is the magic trick for standalone VR gaming. According to Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth, this isn’t the case.

Bosworth, who heads Meta’s Reality Labs XR team, recently hosted one of his open Instagram Q&A sessions. These sessions often mix professional insights with personal tidbits. This week, Bosworth shed some light on wireless compute units and why Meta thinks they aren’t the optimal solution for its standalone VR headsets.

In his latest discussion, Bosworth explained, “We’ve assessed this numerous times. Wireless compute pucks just don’t solve the issue. Even though they’re wireless, the headset still has a battery, which contributes significantly to its weight. Sure, you get a bit more thermal space for potential performance gains, but bandwidth becomes a limitation due to the use of radio signals.”

Leaving aside the technical challenges, Meta is all about making VR more accessible to everyone. Their Quest 3S, for instance, starts at a tempting $300 for the 128GB model. Bosworth elaborated on this, saying, “You’ve significantly amplified your costs. Even if the main silicon resides in the wireless compute puck, you still require enough silicon to handle the displays, manage local corrections, and process the data stream. Essentially, the math doesn’t add up; it doesn’t save you much weight and skyrockets your costs and complexity.”

This shifts focus to Meta’s Orion prototype, which indeed uses a wireless compute unit. However, Orion won’t reach the market due to its exorbitant production cost—a staggering $10,000 per unit because of its rare silicon carbide lenses. However, Bosworth suggests wireless pucks could work well in scenarios like AR glasses where less immersive graphics are acceptable.

Despite this, Bosworth indicated that their first consumer AR glasses won’t be priced as enthusiastically as the Quest series. In September, he hinted that the price tag would not come cheap, aligning more with the cost of smartphones and laptops, even as Meta strives to keep them somewhat accessible.